This invention relates to an ear wire for insertion into the opening of pierced ear lobes. The ear wire is supported by the ear lobe and in turn supports an ear ornament which ornament may be exchanged with others as befits the style or occasion.
The term wire as utilized herein means any length of material including metal, plastic or other appropriate substances as well as the shape into which such wire is formed while the terms bent, etc are used in their generic sense and thus refer to the ultimate shape or configuration of the ear wire rather than the particular manner by which such was formed e.g. bending, cutting to shape, die casting, injection molding etc.
Ear wires for ear ornaments are well known and have been in common use for many years particularly in conjunction with pierced ears. One type ear wire construction are those formed from a single length of wire of which type the present invention for an ear wire is included. Such ear wires normally are provided with some type of guard feature to assure against the loss of the ornament by slipping through the remaining ear wire portion. Such guard portion is often formed by the attachment or formation of a thickened end portion such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 427,265 and 3,071,938 or a separate wire or hook attachment to the ear wire itself from which the ornament depends by means of an additional jump ring such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 293,958; 324,757; 711,269; 983,598; 1,561,128; D174,740 and 2,956,422 or are of an extremely complex configuration such as illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 528,197; 2,009,537 and 2,629,989. These styles present disadvantages either to the user or manufacturer which it would be desirable to eliminate.